Tragic Rock star electrocution deaths and the endurance of Pete Seeger's music

On this date in 1972, Les Harvey — guitarist for the Scottish band (which many believed would become huge) Stone the Crows — died on stage when he was electrocuted by a microphone. He reportedly died when he touched the (probably) ungrounded mic and his guitar at the same time during soundcheck (with what many believe were wet hands).

Harvey is a member of the sad club of rockers who died at the age of 27. He's also a member of a smaller club of known musicians who died from electrocution.

Keith Relf, singer for The Yardbirds, died in 1976 at the age of 33 after being electrocuted by an (again) ungrounded electric guitar.

John Rostill was the bassist for the British Pop group that gave Cliff Richard to the world, The Shadows (he was also a member of Zoot Money Quartet alongside future Police guitarist Andy Summers). Rostill was found dead in 1973, electrocuted by a guitar that was (again!) believed to be improperly grounded.

French Pop singer/songwriter Claude Francois — who cowrote the classic Sinatra tune "My Way" and sold over 70 million records in his career — died in 1978 at the age of 39. Francois returned to his Paris abode after recording a BBC special and was standing in a full bathtub when he tried to adjust a light on the wall above the tub. He was electrocuted and died. As far as I know, everything was properly grounded in the bathroom.

Seeger — who will be awarded a "Distinguished Service" honor from the American Academy of Arts and Letters on May 16 — popped up in the news recently in a manner befitting the revolutionary singer/songwriter who penned (or co-penned) standards like "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," "If I Had Hammer" and "Turn, Turn, Turn!" He also popularized the spiritual "We Shall Overcome," which became the Civil Rights Movement's theme song.

Seeger's social consciousness in song was used once again in a powerful way last week when tens of thousands of Norwegians joined together for a marathon singalong of his song, "My Rainbow Race" (the Norwegian version is called "Children of the Rainbow") as a way to protest/heckle admitted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik during his trial for murdering 77 people last summer. Breivek had previously dissed the song because it "brainwashed" children into believing that things like cultural diversity and racial harmony are good. He said, in court, that the song was brought to schools by "cultural Marxists."

"The curriculum is stripped of knowledge relating to the codes of honor that have been so important for Europe for thousands of years,” Breivik said. “They put up these songs and propaganda films to get students to despise their forefathers.”

Here's Lillebjørn Nilsen leading the singalong (he popularized the original Norwegian version).

Famous musical marriages and Ke$ha's hidden talents

Were it not for the Grim Reaper, two celebrated musical couples would be celebrating wedding anniversaries today. Country music superstars Johnny Cash and June Carter (soon-to-be Carter Cash) tied the knot on this date in 1968 in a Franklin, Ky., church. The bride wore light blue; the groom wore (duh!) black. Their relationship was the basis for the celebrated biopic Walk the Line, which showed the couple's rocky patches in all their glory, as well as their dedication to each other. The couple had just one child together, John Carter Cash (born in 1970). The couple managed to put their problems behind them and remained married until June's death in May of 2003. Cash passed away five months later.

June co-wrote (with Merle Kilgore) one of Johnny's biggest songs, 1963's "Ring of Fire," which is said to have been inspired by her conflicted feelings for Johnny.

Also on March 1, Punk poetess Patti Smith and former MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith were hitched at the Detroit Mariner's Church in 1980. They'd met in 1976 in front of Detroit's Lafayette Coney Island, a famous hot dog joint, introduced by her guitarist, Lenny Kaye, before Fred's Sonic Rendezvous Band was set to open for Patti's band. They were a couple two years later and after marrying, the pair pulled back from the public eye to raise their children, daughter Jesse (born in 1987) and son Jackson (in 1982), who went on to marry The White Stripes' drummer Meg White in 2009. In 1988, Smith released Dream of Life, a collaborative project with her husband and her first album since 1979's Wave. Smith died of a heart attack in 1994, leading Patti back to New York City and back to music. She toured with Dylan in 1995, then released Gone Again the following year, marking her total return to the music world (she's had four albums since).

Here's "Dancing Barefoot" from 1979, a song Patti dedicated to her new beau, Fred Smith.

Click on for Born This Day featuring … OMG, Justin Beiber is 18 today!

Notorious B.I.G. dies and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz lives

Today is the 15th anniversary of the murder of celebrated rapper Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, aka Big Poppa, etc., etc.). Since his death, Wallace's status has risen considerably and he's widely considered one of the best MCs to ever hold a mic, for both his smooth, laid-back flow and lyrical prowess.

Caught in the middle of the East Coast/West Coast feuding of the time, Wallace (a NYC native) was killed while in California promoting his soon to be released sophomore album, eerily titled (in hindsight, as was his debut's title, Ready to Die) Life After Death. On March 9, Smalls attended the Soul Train awards show in L.A., where he presented Toni Braxton with one of two awards she would win that night (and was booed by the West-leaning coastal feuders in the audience). Wallace left an afterparty at 12:30 a.m. later that night and, about 50 yards from the party entrance, a black Chevy Impala reportedly pulled up next to the vehicle the MC was in and someone in the Impala shot Wallace four times in the chest. He was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead March 9 at 1:15 a.m.

Despite various theories, confessions and extensive investigations, the case, like that of West Coast star rapper Tupac Shakur (killed about six months prior in similar fashion), remains unsolved.

Life After Death came out 15 days after Wallace's murder. It went to No. 1 on Billboard's album chart instantly. Two more posthumous B.I.G. records were cobbled together — 1999's Born Again, featuring tracks culled from unfinished ones on which Wallace had been working, and the similar Duets: The Final Chapter from 2005, which was widely criticized due to the posthumous pairings with artists many felt Wallace would never have worked with in his lifetime. The album's guests included Eminem, Twista, The Game, Nas, Nelly, Scarface, Missy Elliott, R. Kelly, Bob Marley (?!), Korn (?!?!) and West Coast MCs Snoop Dogg and 2Pac. Amazingly, unlike the posthumously prolific 2Pac, the album really was "The Final Chapter"; the only other Biggie releases to come out after that were a 2007 greatest hits collection and the 2009 soundtrack to the film Notorious, based on Wallace's life and death.

Time magazine's website posted a music video playlist tribute today here. And below is "Living In Pain" from the Duets release, which featured Big and Pac, plus still-alive performers Nas and singer Mary J. Blige:

Click on for Born This Day, featuring Bow Wow, John Cale and Ornette Coleman.

When
researching Bogart’s for the first of these columns, I discovered a place that
used to be its side-stream neighbor. Sudsy Malone’s, which sat just across the
street from Bogart’s until 2008, may be a well-known name to older
Cincinnatians, but to those of my generation I imagine it’s a legend unheard.

Sudsy’s, as
those who knew it well referred to it, was more than just a bar or music venue.
It was a laundromat. A gathering place of locals who fancied having a beer and
hearing a tune as their clothes turned over in bubbly cleanliness. And while it
was only open for a fraction of the time many of the big venues around here
have been, it occupies a deep space in the history of Cincinnati and its local
music scene.

Refined
searches and several page scrolls through Google turns up hardly anything on
the former venue. I finally found a memorial Facebook page that further
fascinated me, still only offering a brief and general history but filled with
posts by former loyal patrons reminiscing of great times at the bar, offering
tales of hilarious happenings along with images, videos and old posters to fill
it all in with color.

I wanted to
know more in hopes of giving Sudsy’s its due place in Cincinnati music history.
To understand where it all started and where it went from there, I talked to
Janine Walz, a former managing partner who was around during the
establishment’s heyday.

Sudsy’s was
originally owned by John Cioffi and opened in 1986. As I understand it, the
idea was inspired by similar businesses popping up in the region such as Dirty
Dungarees in Columbus. They serve beer, so you can sip some foam while
listening to the groan of washers and dryers, but Dungaree’s was never quite a
bar. They served drinks in more of a refreshment center style. Cioffi’s vision
for Sudsy’s was different.

The
decision for the name came from a lot of scrawling and scratching by Cioffi and
his family.

“They just
had a long list of names that they would write down as they were brainstorming,
and then they started crossing names out until it was down to Soapy Tucker’s or
Sudsy Malone’s,” Walz says.

Michael
Sharp, the highly adored Renaissance man known for his ballet career in
Cincinnati and who sadly just passed away in September, designed the character
logos. Soapy Tucker was a sort of motherly figure, whereas Sudsy Malone was a true
gangster.

He became
the face of the place, with his one-eyed look, suds-filled beer and coin-flipping
hand becoming the calling card of the bar’s sign.

Upon
walking in the front door guests faced a 40-foot bar.

“We would
have competitions to see who could slide a mug full of beer the furthest down
the bar without spilling it,” Walz recalls with a smile.

They had
little round cocktail tables covered with dark blue tablecloths and standard
bar stools. The ceiling undulated with the movement of fans under which each
had a globular light, providing a sort of soft ambiance to the bar.

At the back
of the building sat the laundry area, a brightly lit room where the fluorescent
lights glinted off dozens of top-of-the-line washers and dryers.

“I remember
some of the bands complaining after a while about the laundry room lights
because they would glow into the bar and kill the mood for the crowd,” Walz
says. “We strung up some Christmas lights and would just turn those on instead
when bands were on stage at night.”

When the
place first opened, however, the stage didn’t exist. Live music had never even
been part of the idea.

“It was
only intended to be a laundromat with frosty-mug beer,” Walz says of the
original plan.

Walz
recalls being the second laundry customer when Sudsy’s first opened. She worked
at the Perkins just up Short Vine, and happened to be John Cioffi’s waitress
the day he sat down to get food with the liquor agent that was supposed to be
approving Sudsy’s license.

“When they
were finishing lunch he asked me to come a few doors down to talk to him about
a job,” she says. “I figured it was the same distance from home and might pay
better, so I went. Next thing I knew I was hired on as a manager.”

In other
words, she was there from the start. Walz watched the bar being built, and she
knew it when it was just a place for people to wash clothes and have a drink,
the crowd rarely exceeding 10 people.

Only months
after the place opened, a local band called The Thangs approached the owners
with the idea to play music. Essentially, they just wanted a place to gig when
nowhere else would let them. After some hesitation, Sudsy’s let them do it, and
much to their surprise the first show was packed with about 100 people. Sudsy’s
wasn’t expecting this, and they completely sold out of every drop of beer they
had stocked at the time.

With such
outrageous success, The Thangs wanted to come back. Before long, music became
the detergent to Sudsy’s suds, responsible for consistently bringing in large
crowds. At first they charged a very minimal cover, mostly so they had
something to give the band, and offered a free soft-drink ticket with entry for
additional incentive.

By ’87 they
were charging a $5 cover, although they would still let people in for free if
they had a basket of laundry. This often resulted in washers full of abandoned
clothes the next day, as people brought the clothes to get in and then simply
forgot about them in the excitement of music and merriment. Over time, Sudsy’s
developed a massive collection of forsaken threads.

This memory
sparked another for Walz: “I remember this guy that would show up about once
every year driving a station wagon. He would take the clothes people had left
over time and pack every inch of his car, literally. He would do something with
them, I think donate them.”

As the
place continually packed in people like foam to the top of a mug — thanks to
the highly praised booking magic of Dan McCabe (Now of MOTR Pub) — problems
inevitably occurred that now seem laughable. The carpet in the bar area became
so matted and disgusting that it resembled tile, so Walz had it ripped out and
replaced with wood. The men’s bathroom was a story of its own. Widely known as
“Worst Men’s Bathroom,” Walz said she wouldn’t go near it, even almost buying
stainless steel sheets to layer on it so she could just hose it down at night.

At one
point the fire department came in and completely cleared house, although there
wasn’t a single flame or wisp of smoke. The building’s stated capacity was far
under how many people they would pack in, and one night they had to count the
crowd back in, one by one. Eventually they completely stopped the music for a
period of time to get the building up to code.

Despite its
small size, Sudsy’s brought in now-major acts that were rising at the time —
Beck, Smashing Pumpkins and Red Hot Chili Peppers — while also helping breed
local acts like The Afghan Whigs and Over The Rhine. Almost all the music was
original, save some special events like Grateful Dead night.

Even on
nights they weren’t playing themselves, members of bands could always be found
among the crowd. The music scene at the time was like a circle, made up of
bands and fans that truly appreciated music and enjoyed simply watching people
express themselves creatively. Bands would come out and support other bands.
Non-musicians would out come and support them all.

Even bands
and celebrities that were too big to play there live in the storybooks.
Popularly known folks like Jackson Browne, "Weird Al" Yankovic and
James Taylor stopped in to wash clothes or use the phone. Kate Pierson (B52s)
and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) came by during their Tide protest to pass
out literature in affiliation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Walz
recalls the afternoon before a Jefferson Airplane concert at Riverbend when the
bar was pretty empty and there were four guys hanging out doing laundry and
drinking a beer. They were worried about their cab not showing up and
frantically trying to figure out how to get to their hotel — so Walz drove
them. Only after dropping them off did she realize the reason the dudes were so
worried about being late.

Walz showed
me the blueprint of the building, and again lit up when she pointed out the
wash sink in the laundry room.

“Some crazy
celebrity took a bath in that sink one night,” she says. “I’m pretty sure it
was Marilyn Manson.”

And these
stop-ins aren’t the only “celebrity” claims to fame for Sudsy’s. The bar itself
was given awards throughout the years from Cincinnati’s former alternative
weekly Everybody’s News, from “Best
Looking Staff” to “Best Rock Club,” and even “Best Place to Ditch a Blind
Date.” They were also named the best bar in Ohio in ’93 by Creem magazine, courtesy of The Connells.

However,
all the press, awards and celebrities aside, Walz says what really made the
place special were the local patrons.

“It was
like a family, people were loyal,” she says. “They would look out for others,
and for the bands, and would always defend Sudsy’s no matter what. Without the
people, everybody, the people that watched the bands, the bands themselves,
Sudsy’s was nothing.”

The bar
would even cater specifically to bands they knew well, for example stocking
extra Hudy Delight when The Thangs would come back because their crowd loved to
drink it.

There were
also folks she referred to as “family bums”. There was Archie Harrison, a local
homeless man who would help clean at night for a little money. During the days
he would just hang out, always being jolly and telling jokes sharing what
little bit of anything he might have had that day to share.

Then there
was Sonny, a good-hearted man who hid behind a hulk of a body. Sonny would
guard the back door, despite never being asked.

“I remember
one time one of the dryers was broken and the glass wasn’t in there to cover
the hole,” she says. “We had an out of order sign but, you know, I guess it
disappeared. No surprise there. Anyway, we had given him some money to do
laundry and he used that dryer, just picking up the clothes as they fell out of
hole and throwing them right back in. It was hysterical. When we asked him why
he didn’t switch dryers he said he didn’t want to bother us and cause trouble.”

As the Millennium
rolled around, a lot of the core patrons began settling down and showing up
less often. The crime in the area would keep people away, and the decline in
the laundry business lowered their numbers even further. Walz had just put
$12,000 into a new sprinkler system, still trying to keep the building
code-worth, but she, too, was moving toward settling down.

“I was
pregnant at that pointm too, and I was just kind of done working in the bar
business,” she says.

That, along
with clashes between Walz and McCabe about making money versus booking acts that
would be huge for the scene led to Walz selling the establishment by 2002.

While it
seems that Sudsy’s wasn’t as glorious after that time as it once had been, the
venue remained open until 2008, at which time it closed its doors for good. The
old building at 2626 Vine Street remains a boarded up relic.

One of the
most revealing things Walz said during our talk about Sudsy’s was, “If you were
there, you were part of the reason you are here talking to me today.”

It saddens
me that I didn’t have to opportunity to be there, but for all those who were, as
well as for the others that might not have known what this place ever was, this
is just a small piece of the big apple pie that was Sudsy Malone’s Rock n’ Roll
Laundry & Bar.